Honing in on details of intense color and geometric form, Bulgarian photographer and art therapist Radostina Valchanova isolates practically abstract compositions in everyday scenes. Working in color and black-and-white, she highlights geometrically pure shapes and juxtaposes contrasting textures and forms. Where smooth surfaces overlap with roughly hewn objects and sequential patterns give way to blinding monochrome, Valchanova matter of fact-ly presents aesthetic discontinuities with terrific visual style and humor.
Valchanova captures the playful poetics of happenstance when polished neon blues roll across grooved wooden surfaces or shimmering reflections float over deep greens. Her accidental incongruities testify to the variety of wonderful visual re-combinations to be witnessed by such observant eyes. She balances this crisp focus on texture and tone with a delicate sense of composition that guides viewers’ eyes through the arrangement of colors and strong diagonals. Valchanova’s photographs effectively take stock of the rich visual vocabulary of minor details, sparking viewers to seek out quietly creative arrangements in the forgotten moments of everyday life.
For more than ten years, I have expressed myself trough my photographs, trying to catch the beauty of the world with my camera. For the last two years, I have been working with adults and children with physical and mental disabilities. I teach them photography hoping that I would inspire them with my passion for this art. I try to show them how to see the beauty inside and around them and how to use their pictures as windows for all these emotions. I feel incredibly happy and satisfied when I see how my photographs provoke the viewers’ emotions and how they touch something in their souls.
